Doctor Who: Manipulator
by Storms-Are-My-Nature
Summary: The Doctor and Martha find themselves in 2009, Kent, and are alerted to a strange update to the teaching methods at a certain school...


**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or the Doctor, Martha Jones, the TARDIS, the sonic screwdriver, etc, but I DO own Brook and Pippa, as well as WKGSFG!**

**Doctor Who – Manipulator**

_Green lights flickered over the man's face. His dark skin made his teeth flash pearly white as he smiled to himself, and his bald pate shone in the eerie illumination. He was becoming manic, dancing around the strange contraption in the corner of the darkening cellar. Tapping buttons here, pulling levers there, he seemed bordering on the insane. The little creature curled up on the dish whimpered._

"_Nearly there," he murmured, "Nearly there…"_

_The black giant was thrown back against the far wall as an invisible wave of energy slammed into him. A jet of red light hurtled up from the hole in the middle of the unearthly machine, bouncing off all the walls before smashing through the skylight directly above it. A scent of burning hung cadaver-like in the humming air. The small creature was gone._

_The locals reported a peculiar red light shining from outside West Kent Grammar School for Girls (WKGSFG) at around midnight on the 31__st__ May 2009. The police were called in, but could find no trace of spooky goings on, except for a definite smell of burning in the air. _

Martha Jones leaned back, arms firmly crossed and eyes narrowed. She glared at the young man busily tweaking knobs and tapping screens, until he looked up, eyes wide and innocent.

"What?" he asked.

Martha clicked her tongue impatiently.

"_What?_" The Doctor repeated.

"So where exactly are we going?" Martha wanted to know.

"Erm…haven't quite decided yet….England in the mid-nineteenth century…um…or maybe New York in the….." He turned to twist a knob on the control panel, setting it to full, "…32nd." He finished.

"Why the 32nd?" asked Martha.

The Doctor grinned cheerily. "Don't know."

When Martha raised an eyebrow, he added defensively, "It sounded good."

Martha's other eyebrow joined the other.

"No, no, noo! I know!" His head popped up from behind the other side of the central console, brown hair tousled, "Ruins of the White House! Washington DC!" The Doctor looked delighted with himself, "Haven't taken you there yet!"

Martha smiled, finding it impossible to keep a surly face with the Doctor's infectious glee. "No, you haven't. So what happened to the White House?"

"Oh, burnt down. 2022, if I remember correctly. Some idiot left a cigarette on a Persian rug. Burnt the place to cinders." The Doctor said off-handedly, hands in trouser pockets, his way of looking casual.

He rounded the organic-looking central console, setting multitudes of apparently random dials spinning with his left hand whilst yanking a lever into effect. His brown eyes gleamed as the Time Rotor started sliding and glowing, making a vworping sound as the TARDIS took flight, by way of dematerialisation into the Time Vortex.

"Here we go!" laughed the Doctor, plonking himself onto his chair and swinging his feet up, just as his time-spacecraft gave a lurch, causing him to fall over.

The Doctor picked himself up and dusted down his brown pinstriped suit, a disgruntled expression on his face.

"Whoa, girl!" he said, patting the console, which was emitting a low keening whine. "Steady!"

Again the TARDIS began to shake violently. Martha grabbed for a railing behind her, clinging on tightly as the tremors got worse.

The Doctor's tan brown overcoat was swinging on the rail next to her arm, and seemed to be coping with the sudden lurches better than Martha.

The TARDIS settled with another abrupt, teeth-jiggering jolt, and the Doctor raced around the console again to check to scanner.

"We've definitely landed." He confirmed, then ran his hand agitatedly through his hair. "But I don't like the look of that." He jabbed his finger at the screen, where lines of interference were shooting through the already incredibly fuzzy picture, a mass of multi-coloured pixels.

Martha peered over his shoulder, and noticed that the picture kept on jumping about, as if the scanner couldn't quite focus on what was going on outside. The Doctor twisted a big black dial next to the screen, in a fruitless attempt to make the picture clearer. It stopped jumping about, but the picture still wasn't clear enough to make out anything more than a huge green smear across some white, and lots of grey/black stuff at the bottom. Martha watched the Doctor anxiously for some sign of reassurance, but he only bit his lip and murmured, "No. That's not good at all…the scanner does tell me that its early 21st century, Earth, but I have no idea where about on the 510,065,600km of surface on Earth it is…"

Suddenly he jumped back, sucking his fingers. He stared in surprise at the control panel. "It burnt me!" said the Doctor, surprise evident in his tone and in his astonished face.

"The TARDIS burnt me!" He repeated, reaching out a cautious finger to dab at the console. Nothing happened. The Doctor pulled out a slim, ceramic, torch-like device, which buzzed a bright ultra-blue. He frowned. "The sonic screwdriver can't pick up any unusual readings, just a strange surge in energy, which seems to just have…"

"Appeared from nowhere?" suggested Martha.

The Doctor pursed his mouth, deep in thought. "The only thing which could possibly cause that surge of energy seems to be falling out of the Time Vortex," He mused, "But the TARDIS' power levels are fine, so it wasn't a lack of fuel, so that means that it must have fallen out through a Rip."

"A Rip?" echoed Martha.

The Doctor nodded. "Think of the Vortex, like a, I dunno, piece of fabric. If you hold it up and put things, like, say, a pebble on it, the pebble won't fall to the ground because it is being supported, right, and you can't see it because the fabric is in the way. But if you make a rip in the fabric, if it is big enough, the pebble will fall through, which is what, in effect, seems to have happened here. But it takes strength to tear the fabric, doesn't it, and the Time Vortex is infinite, so it is exceedingly hard to rip, which means that the amounts of energy needed to make a tear big enough to let the TARDIS fall through would be huge. Absolutely gigantic. Terrifyingly massive. And I can't see any technology in the 21st century being able to manage anything near that amount of power. You might be able to manage it in the late 64th century, after humans managed Time-travel, but in the 21st…. no way. No way at all. Unless..." He trailed off, gazing into the distance, as if he could see all the possible dimensions, and was looking for a reason for this phenomenon, which, Martha reminded herself, he probably could.

"Um, Doctor?" She asked, jerking him back from his reverie. "What exactly are we going to do about it?"

He flashed her a reckless grin. "Poke about a bit. Find out what could possibly be generating such power. Dismantle it. Deal with all the bad guys trying to take over the Earth. Back to the TARDIS. Go wherever we were planning to go – ruins of the White House, wasn't it? – and problem solved. The rip should heal itself once we've got rid of that energy problem."

"So, just a normal day's work!" laughed Martha.

The Doctor locked the blue police box's doors behind them as they stepped out. Martha chuckled out loud as she took in where they had landed. They were parked slap-bang in the middle of a car-park, in front of a Waitrose. She nudged the Doctor, whose gaze flicked up to the bright green letters on the front of the white building in front of them, windows aglow with many lights. He looked sad for a moment, and Martha couldn't work out why. Then she realised. _Wait Rose_. She grinned wryly, and took the Doctor by the elbow, leading him out of the path of a black Mercedes with an irate driver honking at them.

"Where to now?" she asked, itching to find out where they were in the world.

The Doctor licked a finger and held it up to the wind. "That way." He decided, striding off towards some tall poplars swaying in the breeze at the edge of the car park.

Two girls were walking across the car-park at the same time. One was short and freckled; wearing her bright red hair in two bunches at the sides of her head. The other was tall and serious-looking, her light brown hair worn in loose ringlets down to her waist.

They stopped next to the police box. "That wasn't there yesterday." Pippa said. Her friend sighed. "Well, we don't have time to worry about that now, we need to be at school in ten minutes!"

"I was only saying…" the red-head complained, "Why are you always such a spoil-sport, Brook?"

"Because."

Brook grabbed her friend's arm, and dragged her across the car-park at full-speed, neatly dodging the traffic. They were going so fast that they nearly crashed into the Doctor and Martha.

"Sorry!" they yelped, then stopped and turned to look curiously at the travellers.

"Er, why are you wearing ski-coats in June?" Brook asked.

(The Doctor had insisted that Martha took a coat, saying firmly that they never knew what it was like out there. They could be in the Antarctic, for all he knew.

"Then let's hope we meet some friendly penguins!" Martha had giggled.)

The Doctor looked around in hope of inspiration. "Um, we're, um, wrapping up warm."

"I'd guessed that. I was wondering why." Brook said coolly.

The Doctor said, "oh, you never know what the weather is like nowadays, do you, 2008, global warming and so on!"

Pippa looked at him oddly. Her friend drawled wryly, "Where have you been for the last six months? It's 2009, Mister!"

"That's what I meant." The Doctor said quickly.

Martha chipped in, "aren't you meant to be at school or something?"

Pippa made a face, "They probably won't notice if we're late. Those memory aids are a bit useless."

The Doctor's attention was caught. "What memory aids?"

Brook looked incredulous. "Have you never heard of the memory devices, installed a month ago? Little beepy boxes that are meant to help the teachers remember stuff?"

"Nope."

"Who are you, anyway?" Pippa asked suddenly.

The Doctor fished around in his pockets. Martha knew what he was looking for – the psychic paper. He tipped a bright yellow yo-yo, a bag of boiled sweets, a ball of string, a large bronze coin, which, on inspection, said it was a 20 Zarg piece, a handy toffee hammer, and, most oddly of all, a banana. He finally found what he was looking for, and waved a thin black wallet in the girls' faces.

"You're Doctor John Smith, inspector of, of recollection abetting devices?" Pippa read carefully.

"That's me."

"So you've come to check our teacher's memory aids? But I thought you'd never heard of them?" Brook asked suspiciously.

The Doctor grinned charmingly. "Just wanted to check how much you were told about them, that's all."

"Huh." Brook sniffed.

Pippa had been watching this exchange with a bewildered expression. "But I thought you were an inspector of recollection abetting devices?" She asked, clearly confused.

"That means he's checking the memory aids, dolt!" Brook gently cuffed her friend around the head.

"Then why doesn't it say that?" Pippa persisted, green eyes narrowed, "It would be much easier to understand."

"Because we like to sound impressive," Martha laughed, "Well, he does." She nodded at the Doctor, stowing his psychic paper inside his coat again.

Pippa nodded, as if this made sense, and then dropped her bag at Brook's feet and grabbed Martha's hand to start towing her across the car-park. Brook cast an unusually sympathetic look in the dark skinned girl's direction, before picking up her energetic friend's bag and starting after them.

The Doctor was taking readings on the sonic all the way along the canal, and Brook couldn't help but eye it curiously. He caught the direction of her gaze and held up the strange device.

"Sonic screwdriver," He explained, "opens locked doors, takes readings, resonates concrete, useful in almost any situation."

Brook raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, pull the other one." She said, rather sceptically.

The Doctor looked wounded. "It does, really. I'll prove it. See, if I change the frequency level to just the right pitch, I should be able to – aha!" The tip of this 'sonic screwdriver' glowed a bright blue, and a high squealing noise battered Brook's eardrums. The tarmac beneath her feet got hot, and in one spot, directly beneath the sonic screwdriver, the tarmac blistered into a sticky pool of tar.

"Wicked." Brook breathed. Pippa looked on, unusually silent for a second, though it didn't last long, "That has got to be the coolest thing I have seen for a long time!" She decided, making the Doctor and Martha laugh.

When they reached the back gates of Pippa and Brook's school, they were asked to show some ID, by two formidable looking Wardens in plain black suits standing by the gate-posts. Brook fished two red wallet-kinds of things, and flashed it at the Warden.

The Doctor waved the psychic paper in front of the nearest Warden's nose, who nodded and grunted.

"Ta, Bill!" The Doctor said impudently, before sauntering past, seemingly oblivious to the furious stares from 'Bill'.

The two girls left the Doctor and Martha outside the Headmaster's office, explaining that they needed to get to lessons. The Doctor waved them off with a jovial grin. "Off you go then – nothing like a bit of recreational mathematics!"

They thought he was joking.

"Welcome to West Kent Grammar School." Mr Beed showed the Doctor and Martha into his study. He seated himself stiffly in his navy blue swivel chair, and surveyed the two visitors through oddly glassy blue eyes. The memory aid stuck to the back of his neck whirred and clicked softly. The Doctor cleared his throat. "Well, um, hello!" He waggled his fingers at the Headmaster. "We're here to take a quick looksie at these memory aids of yours, check they're still working, you know!"

Mr Beed made no comment. Hi strange blue eyes unnerved Martha as they stared unblinkingly at the Doctor and Martha, standing uncomfortably in front of his desk. He made no movement to offer the Doctor a chair – not that there _was_ a chair to sit on, in any case – and was ignoring Martha totally.

The Doctor was clearly waiting for some reply, but as no answer was forthcoming, he decided the best thing to do was just plough on. "So, um, could we have a look at your memory aid, as you're like, here?"

There was still no reply. Mr Beed stared unresponsively at the Doctor.

"Okay, take that as no," The Doctor said, "we'll just be going then."

He made for the door, Martha close behind him.

The headmaster stood up. The memory aid clicked angrily.

"You are lying. No inspector was sent."

The Doctor winced. "Oops. Should have thought of that, shouldn't I?"

Mr Beed's memory device let out a menacing whine as two flaps swung open on the sides of the box, and a pair of gun-like tubes unfolded to point at the Doctor and Martha.

"Ah." said the Doctor, "I don't think that's meant to be there." He twisted the door knob frantically, and a red laser beam shot at where his hand had been moments before.

"DUCK!" he yelled, dragging Martha down and crawling to the desk. Martha tugged at his hand indicating that they ought to get out the door, but he shook his head frantically, gesturing wildly at the table, and it took Martha a few seconds to work out what he meant.

They huddled under the desk, listening to the sound of the headmaster struggling to aim his lasers under the table. A hole roughly the size and shape of a bullet was punched in the woodwork just millimetres from Martha's head.

The Doctor was fumbling for his sonic screwdriver, as the carpet singed around the desk. Martha was on tenterhooks as he finally got it on the right setting and aimed it around the desk at the Headmaster. A high buzzing sound came from the glowing blue tip, and as Martha watched as Mr Beed seemed to crumple in on himself, collapsing face first onto the burn-spotted desk. Martha winced as something in his head cracked. The room was like a bombsite, papers fluttering to the scorched carpet, and pens and pencils rolling all over the place.

The Doctor lowered the sonic, but it came swiftly back up again when the prone headmaster twitched, his right arm jerking convulsively.

"Programming…coming back online…online download completed…" Mr Beed intoned robotically, dragging himself up. He staggered to the door, memory aid clicking noisily.

As soon as the android headmaster had gone, the Doctor let out a huge breath. "Phew!" he grinned, "Well, that was unexpected, wasn't it?"

"What was that?" Martha asked curiously.

The Doctor fastidiously stowed the sonic screwdriver in his jacket pocket before replying.

"I'm not sure." He answered, choosing his words carefully, "That was robotically controlled, for sure, but the question is, who's controlling it?"

Martha narrowed her eyes at him, "So what are we going to do about it? We can't just let him get away!"

The Doctor flashed her a manic grin. "I'll tell you what we're going to do – we're going to get out of here sharpish!"

He strode around the desk and yanked open the door, nearly walking into a stern-faced police-man standing behind the door with gun cocked.

"Oh, no fair!" the Doctor complained, "How come he gets the police?"

Pippa was staring glazedly at Mrs Higgs. The English teacher was waffling on about irregular verbs, and had been doing so for about half an hour. Pippa had stopped listening 29 minutes and 59 seconds ago.

Next to her, Brook was avidly copying down notes with the eagerness that she reserved especially for anything to do with school. Pippa sighed, wondering how the Doctor and Martha were getting on with Mr Beed. The Headmaster was a tricky person to deal with at the best of times, but at the worst….ugh. She suppressed a shudder as she remembered the horrifying assembly only a week ago.

A small girl in Pippa and Brook's year had been wearing her PE kit, as her school uniform had gone missing. Mr Beed had yelled at her loudly, put her in detention, and forced her to stand in the corner of his office for an entire day before suspending her for a week. Alice's parents had removed her from the school and gone to Court about it.

The door crashed open, and Pippa was jerked back to her senses. A helmeted Warden marched in. "Sorry to interrupt, miss, but you must all go down to the basement. The school's security has been breached." He growled. The opaque motorbike helmet hid his face, but Pippa got the impression that something was wrong, apart from the breach of security.

As they were all lining up by the door, in alphabetical order, she found Brook and whispered in her ear.

Brook looked at her, soft gray eyes wide and startled. Swallowing, she glanced around to make sure that no-one was watching them, and then nodded. "Okay." She said in an undertone.

They slipped into an empty classroom on the way down to the cellars, sliding into a pool of shadows just before the door down, and racing back up the corridor as soon as the cellar door slammed shut behind the Warden.

Brook perched on the edge of a desk and fixed her cousin with a penetrating stare.

"Now, tell me what this is all about, Pippa!" she demanded.

Pippa looked sheepish. "Um, well, something seemed wrong."

"_Something seemed wrong!_" Brook mimicked, "Of course something seems wrong, you idiot! The school security has been breached!"

"No!" Pippa protested, "Something else seems wrong!"

The sceptical Brook raised her eyebrows disbelievingly.

"Well, where are the Doctor and Martha?" Pippa pointed out, "We ought to go and make sure they're safe!"

"Has it occurred to you that the Doctor and his friend are the intruders?" The brunette asked coolly.

Pippa looked guilty. "No, but I don't think they are. They had ID and everything."

Brooklyn sighed. "Well, if you really want to, I'll go with you, but if we don't find them by lunchtime, we go back to the basement with the rest, okay?"

With a smile, Pippa opened the door and disappeared into the unlit corridor outside.

The Doctor grinned cheekily up at Inspector Marsh, who stared back stony-faced.

"Why did you attack the headmaster?" Inspector Marsh demanded of the scruffy-haired scallywag.

The Time-Lord's hands were tied behind his back with some harsh rope that cut in uncomfortably, and he was seated on an hard oaken chair, covered by two silent Wardens carrying big heavy guns.

"Well, I thought it might be rather fun, you know, but then he sort of shot at us with laser beams and it got just the teensiest bit dangerous, what with these things burning the carpet to cinders, and totally ruining the wall-paper – they'll have to redecorate in there now, with I suppose is a good thing, because the colour taste in there was absolutely horrific, don't you think, Inspector?" The Doctor replied, completely tongue in cheek. He seemed unworried by the guns pointed at him.

The Inspector sighed. This one was turning out to be a bit of a handful, to say the least. He had never met one like this 'Doctor' before.

"Look, why don't you cut out all that jabber and just tell me why you tried to kill Mr Beed and wrecked his study?"

The Doctor looked blithely annoying. "I just told you? Are your ears not working any more, Inspector Bog?"

"_Marsh_." The inspector hissed between gritted teeth.

"Sorry?"

Inspector Marsh glared at this care-free new-comer. "Inspector _Marsh_."

"Oh, sorry, Sergeant Swamp!" The Doctor deadpanned.

Sarcasm was lost on the irate and balding policeman. His ire was rising every second now.

Inspector Marsh stood up. "My temper will not extend for much longer, Doctor!" His voice rose, "and then you will find yourself chucked in prison without having repented!"

The Doctor jumped up too and yelled into the Inspector's face. "_Well_, I have nothing _to_repent of regarding Mr Beed!"

The policeman sat down, abashed.

"Okay then. We'll let you out on bail and see what you get up too, hmm?"

He nodded at the Wardens, who untied the ropes binding the Doctor, who jumped up with a brief, "Cheers mate!", and vanished into the hallway.

The Doctor collided with Pippa and Brook outside an old store cupboard.

"Hello!" He grinned, "Nice to see you again! You know, I'll probably sound really stupid, which I don't like, but I was wondering - where is everybody?"

He spread his hands and turned a full circle, still looking at Brook and Pippa. "Hmm?"

"They're sheltering in the basements." Brook replied steadily.

"Sheltering from what?" asked the Doctor, raising one eyebrow quizzically. "Nuclear bomb? Air raid? Escaped bear from the local zoo? Cassowary? No?"

"Apparently the school's security has been breached." Brook said cautiously.

The Doctor looked sheepish. "I think you'll find that was me."

Suddenly he grinned crazedly. "So we don't need to worry about that, then! Okay, I can get on with finding Martha! Have you seen her, by any chance?"

The girls shook their heads. The Doctor shrugged, "Oh well, I can find her by myself."

He went a couple of paces down the way he had come from, then shook his head like a dog trying to rid its ears of water, ad turned around and quickly walked back the other way.

Brook and Pippa watched him go with puzzled expressions on their faces.

Martha had been locked into an old classroom. She wasn't tied down or anything, just unable to get out. The rain was hammering against the windows loudly, starting to give her a headache.

She wandered over to the notice board. A large time-table to centre-place, with each lesson coloured differently. Tuesday caught her attention. Instead of having lunch, the kids appeared to go to Room 013, next to the basements. This was labelled 'Training'.

Just then, the door handle buzzed, and a head of tousled hair poked around the corner. Martha smiled as the Doctor marched in with a stern, "Martha Jones, where have you been?"

She nodded at the notice board. "I think you ought to see this, Doctor." She said, pointing to the Tuesday.

The Doctor frowned, not understanding what she meant. "That's a school timetable." he said.

"Yeah, but look at lunchtime!"

The Doctor slipped his glasses out of his pocket and put them on.

All of a sudden, the Doctor and Martha were plunged into shadow as the lights went out without warning.

The Doctor looked up, listening to something inaudible to human ears.

"Can you hear that?" he asked Martha suddenly.

"No. I can't hear anything." Martha replied, unsure whether she ought to carry on about the timetable.

The Doctor jumped up, and marched over to the window. He pressed his hand to the panes, frowning in concentration.

"This isn't any normal storm," he said, "the glass is hot….which means…."

The Doctor strode over to the door and cautiously touched the door knob. He drew his hand away as if he had received an electric shock.

"….which means this is an energy storm, caused by some kind of time manipulator."

"Manipulator?" asked Martha.

"A device used to control time and space, using enough energy." The Doctor replied distractedly, spiking up his hair again as he rubbed his head agitatedly.

The Doctor prised open the ajar door with his trainer, and marched into the corridor. All the power appeared to be off. He fished out the sonic screwdriver and used that to light the shadowy hallways.

Martha pulled her coat closer around her as she followed the Doctor through the grammar school, only stopping once when they came to a dead end.

They ran down flights of stairs, down and down until they reached the ground level. All through the school was darkness and the sound of rain hammering outside, and thunder rolling and lightening cracking.

"Have you ever noticed how a building goes all echoey when no-one but you is around and it's all dark?" The Doctor asked as they skirted around a pile of cardboard boxes.

Martha shook her head. "No, why?"

"Oh, just wondering. I mean, when you're a kid, you get scared of the dark because all the noises seem magnified, as if they echo, and that makes them more unrealistic but scary?"

"Yeah." Martha wasn't quite following, having no idea where this was coming from.

The Doctor suddenly skidded to a halt in front of a dingy little door. "Here we go!" He buzzed the sonic screwdriver at it and it swung open with a gentle click.

He swung the door open, and stood staring down with the saddest expression Martha had ever seen.

"I'm so sorry." He said simply.

"Arkenspilinumaxikpoll, the home-planet of the Radishonials, beings of great knowledge. It was one of the many planets destroyed in the Time War." The Doctor said, his eyes full of the same grief that appeared whenever he spoke of his people, his planet or the Time War. "Many planets were used as battle-grounds, Arkenspilinumaxikpoll one of them."

"So he's like you, Doctor." said Martha, feeling pity for the little wizened creature seated in front of her, so like the house-elves from Harry Potter, but with a head that bore a remarkable resemblance to E.T., but with skin all saggy like and elephants. Its huge beetle-black eyes took up most of its wide face, and the small mouth was almost hidden by a fold of skin in place of a nose.

"Arkenspilinumaxikpoll was little more than a rock like the moon, floating around in a random orbit in the constellation Kasterborous, but when it was destroyed, the few surviving Radishonials had to flee to far away before they were exterminated. The Daleks swore to wipe them out, get rid of them, which means unless we heal up the Rip, we'll get fleets of Daleks coming after this one."

The Doctor paused for breath, and gave the Radishonial a sympathetic look.

"Well, as we don't know what is causing the Rip, we can't exactly stop it, yet we can't have Daleks here, can we?"

Martha shook her head, wondering yet again what he was wittering on about. There was only one Dalek left in existence, wasn't there?

"So we need to go and find out what is generating that Rip then, don't we?" The Doctor continued.

"If you say so. But what about him?" Martha asked, gesturing at the little Radishonial.

"I cans speaks for I self, miss!" The Radishonial squeaked indignantly, prodding Martha with one long finger. "I is Limohdashicam of the radiant city of Radish!"

Martha had to stifle a giggle at that, and Limohdashicam noticed.

"Yous thinks is funny, miss?" The Radishonial narrowed his protuberant eyes at Martha. "The radiant city of Radish is inside a big purple cocoon, shaped like a tear-drop. Yous haves nothings likes that on Sol 3, miss!"

Martha collapsed in giggles at that.

The Radishonial turned away huffily, addressing the Doctor. "I wishes to go home, sir!"

The Doctor looked saddened at that. "You can't, Limohdashicam. Arkenspilinumaxikipoll is being destroyed in the Time War, this very minute, in the time-space you are from. It is already destroyed for me."

Limohdashicam didn't seem concerned. "No bigs matter, sir, I goes to other planets, buts I's dislikes this ones, sir!"

"We'll get you to another planet, Limohdashicam, don't you worry." The Doctor assured the Radishonial.

All of a sudden, time and space gloomphed around them, and a Dalek appeared by the window.

"_EX-TER-MIN-ATE_!"

The little being screamed as the energy beam hit it, gruesomely showing every bone in its body glowing with electricity as it fell to the floor.

The Doctor was outraged. "What did you do that for, eh? No don't tell me, its _because you could!_ He never did you any harm!"

"_TIME-LORD DE-TEC-TED! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE_!"

"Oh yes, I'm a Time-Lord, and I demand you leave! I've fought in the Time War, and I've seen the end of it – I brought around the end of it!" The Doctor spat, fury and sorrow battling for place in his voice.

"_WHAT-IS-THIS-YOU-SAY-A-BOUT-THE-TIME-WAR?_ _DA-LEKS-WILL-BE-SU-PREME! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!_ _DA-LEKS-WILL-NOT-BE-DES-TROYED!"_

The Doctor sneered, "Well, tough, because you're all going to _burn_, all of you - _Dalek_!"

He grabbed Martha's hand, and turned tail and ran, pausing briefly only to lock the door behind them.

"This won't stop it, but it'll buy us some time!" He yelled over his shoulder.

"Time to do what?" Martha shouted back as they pounded down the still-dark corridor.

The Doctor grinned. "Time to stop them!"

The Doctor ran straight to the basement, locking every door behind them with the sonic screwdriver. Martha struggled to keep up, running her hardest, yet still the Doctor had to wait for her to catch up so he could lock the door.

They tripped down the steps in the dark, feeling for each step with a cautious toe. Martha counted nineteen in all, by the time she reached the bottom. The Doctor had vanished into the darkness at the bottom, and she hesitated before setting out.

"Doctor?" she called. There was no reply, so she took another step. And then she saw him. He was caught in a blue stasis box, in the middle of adjusting his sonic screwdriver. Martha gulped in horror. How was she going to get out of this mess? A Dalek was on her tail, the Doctor was caught in a trap of some sort – but set by who? – and there was a school of kids stuck with mindless robotic teachers who could quite easily turn on them and slaughter the kids that were – or had been – their pupils.

Martha dashed over to the panel which the Doctor had been trying to do stuff to. She had no idea what he had been going to do, but she could at least try to revert the stasis field – it was her best hope.

She avoided the blue stasis field containing the frozen Doctor, and studied the panel. Lots of glittering and glowing buttons were dotted all over it, and Martha felt a stab of fear – what if she did something wrong, and it cost everyone their lives? But then she closed her eyes, and told herself firmly, _You're not going to make a mistake. Just think, what would the Doctor do?_

She opened her eyes again and had another look at the mass of buttons. One button in particular, big, red and important looking caught her eye. Martha stuck out one trembling finger, closing her eyes again, and prodded at it. A slight _phhtt! _met her ear-drums, and she opened one eye to see the Doctor grinning happily in her face.

"Martha Jones, you've just saved me a lot of bother!" he said, reaching over lazily and flicking half a dozen switches, apparently at random.

"Er, Doctor? What are you doing?" Martha asked uncomfortably, but was interrupted by the determined, "_EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!_"

"Here we go again!" sighed Martha, before running after the Doctor into the room next door.

The Doctor stopped dead when he saw what was inside the room.

"It can't be!" he whispered through numb lips. A tall, black-skinned figure wearing glittering red and gold robes was gliding across the concrete floor towards them.

Pippa watched the Doctor stride away from them before turning to Brook and saying, "We have to follow him."

Brook glared at her angrily, and said, "You promised that we were only going to check that they were alright!"

"Yes, but Martha's not alright, is she?"

"Look, she's probably fine! I bet the Doctor's found her by now, and then they'll just leave us all in peace!" Brook exclaimed, temper mounting.

The red-head stared at her helpless with anger, before stalking off down the corridor.

Brook sighed impatiently, and set off in the opposite direction, towards what she hoped was the basement where she was meant to be.

As she rounded the corner, she thought she heard footsteps behind her. Brook swung around, thinking it was Pippa coming back to say sorry, but she could see no-one. The hair on the back of her neck prickled uncomfortably.

Brook carried on, a little brisker now, and the footsteps didn't come back again. She shook her head, and tucked her curly brown hair behind her ears.

As she was passing an empty classroom, she thought she heard movement inside, the scurry of footsteps, but when she looked in, the deserted room was just that: a cold, dark, empty classroom. As she shut the door, Brook told herself sternly that she must stop being so paranoid. Nobody was following her; nothing was there, other than row after row of empty desks.

Brook continued along the brightly lit corridor, looking for the stairwell down to the next level. WKGS was huge, with five floors and many classrooms and corridors on each floor.

Above her head, the electric lights started flickering annoyingly.

"Pack it in!" Brook scolded them. Her voice echoed emptily along the hallway. Unsurprisingly, the lights didn't respond to her telling off, and decided to be contrary, switching themselves off.

"Great!" Brook grumped. However, just up ahead was the stairwell to the fourth floor. However, just as she was about to reach for the door handle, the space in front of her rippled like the surface of a slow-moving river, and a peculiar metal creature materialised behind it.

The first thing Brook noticed was the electric blue thing staring straight into her eyes. As she took a step back, she realised that the metal thing was ginormous, almost two metres high, and nearly a metre wide. Bobbles seemed to be stuck onto some sort of plated skirt, brassy-gold in colour, and then a sort of ventilation thing, like the air conditioning thing in a toilet, but black and gold. On top of this peculiar thing was a smooth metal dome, with the strange blue thing sticking out from it. The logical part of Brook's mind reasoned that this must be an eyestalk of some kind, as it moved to scan her entire face.

The whisk-like contraption sticking out from what appeared to be the creature's belly, shifted slightly, to point straight at Brook's abdomen.

"_WE-ARE-THE-DA-LEKS! WE-MUST-BE-SUPREME! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"_

Oddly, as Brook died, she reflected that it seemed a very human-like thing to say.

Pippa stalked along the corridor like an angry cat, head held stiff and green eyes blazing with anger. As she rounded the corner and started down the staircase, she thought she heard something, like metallic speaking, but thought nothing of it.

When she reached the bottom floor, near the basement, Pippa saw the Doctor and Martha running past the foot of the staircase. They didn't see her, but Pippa saw the metal creature pursuing them, and smiled to herself.

The Doctor stared in horror at the Time-Lord approaching them. "It can't be!" He repeated, and looked around hurriedly for some sort of exit. There was none, other than the door behind them, which the Doctor had just locked, and had an angry Dalek on the other side.

Suddenly the Doctor spotted the red fire alarm box just next to Martha.

"Find something to set that off!" He ordered, nodding at the box. Martha looked startled, and then obliged, taking off her shoe and giving the alarm a hefty whack.

A dreadful ringing started through the school, and the children hiding in the basements looked up in surprise, but did as the teachers ordered and lined up by the doors.

Automatic sprinklers started showering the room with water, and the image of the oncoming Time-Lord fizzled slightly, then vanished. In its place was a dripping Dalek, wet – and dangerous.

Martha could have sworn that, if it could have, it would have tipped its head to one side as it surveyed the Doctor and Martha.

The Doctor's eyes widened as he realised what the Dalek was about to do. He whipped out his sonic screwdriver and started to try to open the door behind them, temporarily forgetting about the Dalek on the other side. However, he was too late as the Dalek aimed its gun at the ground. A bolt of electricity shot through the collapsing bodies of the Doctor and Martha.

If the Dalek could have smiled, it would have done then.

Pippa marched through the ringing halls of WKGS, a cruel smile etched on her young face.

The lines of Daleks in front of her were silent and unmoving. The young girl sang softly to herself as she stared dominatingly down at the bodies scattered around the main hall. As planned, the teacher's had led the students to the waiting Daleks, newly arrived from through the Rip generated by her manipulator machine hidden down in the basement, protected by a force field.

As Philippa Johnson walked the dark and empty corridors of her old school, she thought she heard the soft tread of a footfall behind her. She turned, wondering who possibly could have survived such an onslaught of death, to see three shimmering figures standing behind her, sparkling and golden-white. The Doctor smiled sadly at the lonely little girl, hands in trouser pockets as always. Behind him, Martha tipped her head to one side, an expression of intense pity on her face, and Brook waved at her cousin and best friend for one last time.

And then they were gone, but Pippa was sure that she could hear the rasp of ancient engines fading away into the distance.

**THE END**


End file.
